the water is wide
by sweetwatersong
Summary: (And neither have I wings to fly.) Barton makes a different call, and it could cost him his life. Wing!fic.


**the water is wide**  
rating: pg-13  
characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff  
warnings: brief language, injuries  
author's note i: Written for the be_compromised Valentine's Day promptathon, for the prompt "wing!fic".  
author's note ii: Title and references from _The Water is Wide_, an English folk song.

summary: _And neither have I wings to fly. _Barton makes a different call, and it could cost him his life. [Wing!fic

_the water is wide_

The irony tastes like copper in his mouth, like dust and ashes: if he only had his wings, he could fly out of this mess. But he can't because he's lost them, because they've been torn from his back and the scars have never quite healed; because for twenty years he's only had bloody designs dripping down his back, had the mockery of reality, of the past. The car starts to tip farther over the edge even as Clint makes it to the window, makes it out from under the crumpled roof with hands slashed with glass and a heart lashed by fury.

It's still not going to be enough.

The valley is wide below him, deep and welcoming and echoing, and he thinks almost absently of a sea he cannot cross over, of knowing at last he is sinking instead of swimming. Maybe he has been, all along.

With a metal-tearing groan his car shifts again, rocking forward as its rear wheels scrape against the loose rocks. Those are sent tumbling down in a mockery of an advance guard, a demonstration of gravity, and still Clint refuses to close his eyes. He doesn't want to see his life flash before them; he remembers it all, all too well.

Then the sun is blotted out from his dazed vision, then someone steps to the edge with her face hidden by deep shadows but he _knows_ that crimson color, knows the crimson hair that is brilliant even against the sun, knows her shoulders and stance and the patient way she studies him, studies the cliff.

"Hold on," she says calmly, as if they have eternity, as if he's not sliding towards the rust-colored dust on the ground far below, and as the car begins to fall she jumps after him in one smooth motion.

Even the dizzying concussion isn't enough to hide the truth. There is sky and Natasha and they're all falling, all heading for the same end, and then –

And then –

He recognizes those mottled feathers, spreading and stretching and flexing as if they are enough to cover the world, to carry it all, growing from her back like a miracle. Like they have been released at last.

She catches him, slides her arms under his shoulders as he hugs glass-filled hands around her back, and in the tumble of tan feathers and bright teal sky, of worn green scrub and iron-rich stone, Clint tucks his head into the crook of her neck and holds on, holds on.

Maybe there is a boat that can carry two.

It's not the gentlest landing, angling as she is away from the fireball that had been his car, but he can feel one wing curl around his side to take the first impact, cushion their fall with bone and feathers and a white that is vast and blinding in the daylight. They slide for maybe half a second, maybe two, and when they stop all he can hear is the silence of the valley, the perfect stillness of it all.

Then she shifts, her heartbeat suddenly kicking up in his ear, a thunder to match his own, and Natasha lifts herself up on one elbow to survey the landscape, the damage. Clint takes a painful breath and rolls away, getting off her wing as quickly as he can, pushing himself to his hands and knees because the bones must be shattered, must be jutting through the fall of feathers-

"Are you," he begins, and has to choke on a dry mouth and a wave of nausea, "are you okay?"

The assassin regards him with amusement, with that ever-present distance, and he can feel her gaze even through his hammering headache.

"I'm fine," she tells him, shifting to a kneeling position and shaking out the wings now covered with grit, with dust. "It takes more than that to kill me, Barton."

_I know_, he wants to tell her, wants to work past the bile in his mouth, wants to laugh. _I know_ – but the loss of a wing would kill more than just her heartbeat.

He knows _that_ better than anyone else.

Reassured by her answer, he focuses on breathing then, on trying to pull back any semblance of coherency or balance, but his hands are screaming at him and his head is a clusterfuck and he's pretty sure a few ribs are broken courtesy of the shitty SHIELD rental they had put him in. He's going to write them a complaint that will tear them a new one, soon as he gets back to base.

If he ever gets back to base.

Turning his hands palms-up, Clint rocks onto his heels and doesn't try to think beyond the pain.

He senses her shift towards him and catalog his injuries, feels her lift one of his hands and make a disapproving sound when she sees the shards embedded in it. A pair of tweezers comes from somewhere, one of the pouches on her belt, he thinks, and she starts the long process of extracting the slivers.

"Why?" He asks, unable to muster up the caution or fear or healthy respect the Black Widow should be treated with. Tired, weary, he only knows the one question that matters right now.

Natasha pauses, waits until he can lift his head to look at her, and the expression on her face is inscrutable.

"I've always known where my wings came from, Barton," she says levelly, and he has to inhale at that, the fire in his ribs nothing compared the one in his heart. So he finally has the truth behind those two blacked-out days, behind the gasping snatches of consciousness before he woke back at the circus with blood on his back and a hole in his soul. A genetic mutation or magic or whatever, his hidden wings had been _his_ – and their loss had broken something in him he hadn't known could break. "Since you could not use them to save yourself, I owed it to you."

Clint swallows, or tries to, and it's hard to meet her eyes so he doesn't. It's no use to ask if they can be given back, no point in begging her to return what was taken from him all those years ago. He knows that, understands it, and still has to struggle to keep breathing.

"Thanks," he manages after a minute. Her hands are warm and steady as they work on his own, the assassin he's been hunting tending injuries she has not caused. Maybe she'll kill him once they're done with this moment, whatever it is.

"You are welcome." There is a hint of Russian in her vowels, the soft syllables, and Clint wonders what anyone else would make of this moment. Wonders what _he_ should be making of it. "Your hands are your life, bowman; you should take better care of them."

His laugh is bitter and ugly and he's going to blame this all on a hallucination, on his concussion if Coulson asks what the hell has happened in this valley in a godforsaken desert.

"So were my wings," he tells her, the words grating against each other in his mouth.

She pauses, her hands still. Then their light pressure vanishes, only to lift up his chin, cup his face.

"You chose not to kill me today when you interfered with the Zseti, the magic-hunters chasing me. When you crashed because of them." The pads of her thumbs are calloused and warm against his cheekbones. "I repay my debts, Barton; I saved you in exchange for your help. But I cannot repay you for your wings." There is a touch of sorrow in her voice, in the grey eyes that look almost kindly at him.

Clint nods, his head heavy, and wishes there was not such a hollow ache in him. "Come back with me."

Again that stillness, that consideration.

"And this would be enough for your wings?"

Balances, checks and balances and one thing for another. The truth is, he doesn't want his wings to be in the wrong hands, doesn't want this woman to die alone and forgotten, without steady words and careful precision to save her as she has saved him.

He nods again, the answer holding too much weight to say aloud as his red blood mixes with clear glass, yellow dirt, with a mottled expanse of feathers.

Natasha doesn't say anything immediately but instead turns her attention back to his hands, checks them over before releasing them and putting away her tools.

"Then let us go," she says, taking hold of his elbows as she gets to her feet. "Can you stand?"

"Think so."

It turns out he can, although walking is more of a challenge, so she has to lead him up a narrow path he hadn't seen before, worn out of the cliffs by hooved animals and human feet. One wing stays cupped around him, sheltering and guiding and familiar as it rustles against his back, and Natasha says nothing when he closes his eyes and soaks in the feeling.

Maybe it is possible to cross this divide. After all, they both know how to fly.

_fin_


End file.
